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Museum to be built where slaves set foot in US

Bruce Smith Associated Press

Posted:
07/15/2014 01:45:02 PM MDT

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Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., center, announces that a $75 million International African American Museum will be built at the site of a wharf in Charleston, during a July 15, 2014 news conference in Charleston, S.C. The site is where tens of thousands of slaves first set foot in the United States. Behind the mayor are Wilbur Johnson, left, the chairman of the board of the museum, and artist Jonathan Green, whose colorful paintings of the black culture of the sea islands of the Southeast coast are in collections worldwide. Riley said construction of the museum could begin in early 2016 with completion two years later. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Organizers say a $75 million International African American Museum will be built beside the Charleston harbor where tens of thousands of slaves first set foot in the United States.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley announced Tuesday that the museum will be built near where a wharf once stood in the South Carolina city where the Civil War began.

During the late 1770s and early 1800s, tens of thousands of slaves crossed the wharf entering the nation. Riley says there is no better site for the museum. The location is on the waterfront, just down and across the street from the original site planned for the museum.

The project was first announced 13 years ago.

Riley says construction on the 42,000-square-foot museum could begin in early 2016 with completion in 2018.

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